SOS license

Alex Nicolaou anicolao at cgl.uwaterloo.ca
Wed Nov 10 03:56:26 UTC 1999


Bruce Perens wrote:

> From: Brian Behlendorf <brian at apache.org>
> > "plain" and "unambiguous" are usually not compatible notions.
> 
> Yes. My major problem with the license structure is the way it says
> you can't do something, and then lays out exceptions that allow you to
> do just that thing in the next paragraph. It does this to the extent
> that the license seems to be mainly composed of exceptions.

I must be reading/writing it wrong. I cannot find any clause that
provides an exception that allows you to do something prohibited by the
previous clause. Every clause either allows you to 

a) do something new, previously not mentioned and certainly not
prohibited, 
or
b) restricts your ability to do something previously not mentioned or
allowed. 

If you can point me at the specific conflicts I will do my best to
rewrite them to your satisfaction.

> > I think the BSD, Apache, and Artistic licenses qualify under that
> > one.
> 
> Although I'd strongly recommend you read my criticism of the Artistic at
> http://perens.com/OSD.html before you use it. And although you might object
> to the GPL's length and ambiguity, it's been analyzed more than any other
> license, there's a large body of software under it that could be mixed
> with your code, and it gets modifications back to you, so I'd recommend the
> GPL too.

Although I don't really want to get into a big discussion entitled "why
won't you use an existing license" I can't see any way to avoid it. I
think that you're right that the large and growing number of licenses is
a problem, and that it is a mistake to introduce a new license into the
world that is effectively equivalent to something out there. However, I
have rejected each of the above suggestions for the following reasons:

BSD/Apache/Artistic: I did not wish to allow incorporation of my
software into a commercial software package without the vendor needing
to negotiate directly with me. I find it hard to imagine a commercial
vendor willing to release their entire product as a source code patch to
my program just to get my source code; however if there is such a vendor
they are welcome to do so.

GPL: long, ambiguous, overly restrictive on the end user's patches, not
sufficiently clear about issues of private use, and (more recently)
entangled with the "GNU system"/philosophy. I don't really want to be
answering e-mail asking "is your software part of the GNU System, or a
separate program?" 

> The point at which this license is different from the BSD is that it requires
> that changes go in patches, while the BSD lets you put them in the main thread.

Right. Because of this, even a moderately skilled programmer can
distinguish the size and value of the patch versus the original
software, and make a better decision about whether to purchase the
software or not. Note also, however, that the patch must be provided in
source code form, which is not required by the BSD license.

> Doubtless you've seen the problems we are seeing caused by the
> proliferation of licenses that are all incompatible with each other. Your
> license, for example, can't even be mixed with another program and
> distributed as one piece. So, if we want to marry your code into another
> program, the other program in its entirety must become a patch.

Well, someone who wants to incorporate my code into their program can
always write to me and ask. It's easy for us to make a separate
agreement and allow for the merger. I'll think harder about this issue,
though.

alex



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